Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Rob Roy Glacier

We decided to take the advice of a fellow camper and to go on a long hike...which was rated as "moderate" giving views of Rob Roy Glacier in Mount Aspiring National Park.

The adventure started with a long drive out of town...20 kms on paved road followed by 31 on gravel, through farmers fields, past cows, sheep, deer and wapiti in paddocks. The road had at least 6 fords on it...and it was so weird to be driving through water!

When we finally arrived at the end of the road a sign lead us to the trail which was 10 km in total. The first 1 km was easy...following a glacier fed river through its valley....what followed was 4km of climbing a steep and rough path. This took about 1.5 hours...to the first lookout. A further 30 minutes and we were at the second lookout.

It was spectacular. We had a view of the glacier face and many, many waterfalls which were falling from it as it melts.

Although we had started the day in sun and heat, by he time we got there the clouds had descended...giving the mountain and glacier a spooky kind of ethereal quality. We stayed for about a half an hour...and then faced the inevitable...4km back down. By the end we were exhausted!